Much may be learned both of the closed mind and the
open door, yes and the call of Christ, from Hosea. Our special interest today is
to be found in the translation of Hosea 13:2, a fascinating, not to say
intriguing matter, in which one can only agree in the main with some of the old
Hebrew assessments and that of Jerome, Cyril and Theodoret. However, there is a
spread on the subject, one most illuminating, and it seems good to investigate,
knowing this, that the nearer we get to the text, the better prepared we are for
the test. The word of God is for action.

Hosea is one of the most stridently tender and
poignantly penetrating prophecies in the Old Testament. It is one to awaken not only the
sleeping, but those dead in slumber. When, after all, centuries of folly,
hypocrisy and pride of life have led through disobedience and rebellion to the
revocation of blessing and the axe for asininity, it is time to awaken. At the
purely political, but indirectly national level, Churchill had something for the
British. At the spiritual level, the Lord had something of Israel.

Hosea 12 advises us in this way of the situation:

"Ephraim
feeds on the wind,

And pursues
the east wind;

He daily
increases lies and desolation.

Also they
make a covenant with the Assyrians,

And oil is
carried to Egypt.

"The Lord
also brings a charge against Judah,

And will
punish Jacob according to his ways;

According to his deeds He will recompense him."

Hosea 12:7 makes that charge more particular in
terms of cunning and oppression. Chapter 1 has already metaphorically expressed
the basic charge, which is adultery of the nation; and since this involves
understanding, we need only consult both commonsense and what is written to
realise that the 'lovers' are other sources of trust, other grounds for living,
other motivations to move and other gods to embrace. This is shown over Hosea
2:4--15. In the following verse we see the Lord as the husband of the nation,
bringing her back to Himself, and in verse 17, the exclusion shows what was
meant by the inclusion.

Thus, "I will take from her mouth
the names of the Baals, and they shall be remembered by their names no more."
Baals were 'lords' or recognised local deities, bound in a band of
varieties from place to place, often associated with morals like those of Sodom
and sometimes with sacrifice of mankind. A naturalistic basis made their
religious aspects veiled in evil, misunderstanding and vice.

God then used Hosea in marrying a harlot, as a
symbol for His own 'marrying' of Israel, so that the harlot's reversion to
promiscuity becomes a spiritual program to show the same of Israel, mingling
with alien gods of nature, instead of the Creator of the universe, and the Lord
of life. The Lord then had Hosea redeem her, buy her back, symbol of His plan
for the fallen people of Israel, each one sought out.

Many are the facets and features of the Lord's
ways of reaching and teaching the alienated heart and mind of Israel, shown in this book of
Hosea, and the matter is summed up in this regard, in Hosea 12:10, where we are
shown the enduring love of God, its practical focus and its intensity:

"I have also spoken by the
prophets, and have multiplied visions:
I have given parables through the witness of the prophets."

Multiplied have been the calls of mercy, to purity, to restoration; and multiple
have been their dismissals! Many have been the images to explicate reality,
reach imagination, alert the people. The Lord has been energetic and diversified
in method, singular in message.

It is in this context that we approach the
translation of Hosea 13:2. The preceding verse in this matter also deserves
attention, to give more contextual flavour.

Hosea 13:1-2

A

Hosea 13:1

First, let us consider the
translation to be given, and then see the reasons.

"When Ephraim
spoke, there was trembling: He exalted himself in Israel.

"Now they sin more
and more,
and have made for themselves moulded images, idols of their silver,
according to their skill: all of it the work of craftsmen.

"They say of them, 'Let the sacrificers of mankind kiss the calves!' "

Keil in his Old Testament
Commentary, wrought with Delitzsch also, favours with reason the translation of
the first line. However his understanding of its import is different. To him the
trembling results from the force, power and prestige of an uplifted Israel. It
is then that his exaltation is noted.

This however would be, while not
dissimilar to some of the actions of Ephraim, far from biblical ground of being
exalted in Israel by DIVINE measure!

To understand this, it is
first necessary to realise that Ephraim had very fertile land, and it is even used as
a synonym for Israel (as distinct from the kingdom of Judah, which resulted in
the division of the 10 tribes from Judah and Benjamin, after Solomon's rule, in
that of Rehoboam). This is seen in Isaiah 7:2, 5, 9, 17. Samaria of course, here
mentioned, was the capital of the entire northern kingdom called more often,
"Israel".

Ephraim as a tribe had been itself
leader enough! Judges 8:1 shows the chaffing at lacking a prominent place in a
conflict; and again, the early pitching of the tabernacle was at Shiloh, in the
territory of Ephraim. You see a rather rancorous seeming reaction of eminence
and assurance likewise, in Judges 12:1ff..

However it is as a nation designated
under this name, as a handle, that we find the usage in Hosea, the topic of
which is not specialised to tribes, but to the two nations (Hosea 1:1).

You see, in fact, even an
alternation between referring to the nation as 'Israel' and 'Ephraim' in this
very prophecy, at Hosea 11:1-3. "When ISRAEL was a child,
I loved him ... " the Lord declares.

He proceeds in a little,

"I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms;
but
they did not know that I healed them. I drew them with gentle cords, with bands
of love,
and I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped
and fed them."

Here you see the real way in which
Ephraim was exalted. He did it by receiving from the Exalted One, the
tenderness of His service, the stoop of His grace and the lovingkindness of
His compassion. At such a time, when Ephraim spoke, there was trembling. That
was the nature of the relationship through which Ephraim was exalted, seen as
from his genesis; and it was before the haughteur and self-willed
aggrandisements and furies, flurries and worries took hold in the tender soil,
like vast weeds.

Again, in Jeremiah 31, you see the
Lord referring again in tender terms to Ephraim, as if this sinning segment of
mankind, so dear to Him in His historic placarding to all the world of His
power and His ways, and His scope for salvation amidst them, and again,
Ephraim exalts himself by humbling himself, by baring his heart. For it
remains true: "The Lord is near to those who have a
broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit." It is always
true this, that "Blessed are the meek, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven"! (Matthew 5). God does not change, nor do His ways
(Habakkuk 3:6).

Thus it is not that when Ephraim
spoke, as in Hosea 13:1, OTHERS trembled, so that he exalted himself in
Israel. Far from this is the case. In fact, God resists the proud (James 4:6
cf. Proverbs 3:34), but gives more grace to the lowly. Keil, whose works are
usually so delightful in erudition, therefore, though presenting the Hebrew
well, does not present its meaning well. The Authorised Version in this
instance, however does! It is well that it is so.

Let us see moreover in Jeremiah
31:16-21, the extent to which it is the TREMBLING character of Ephraim's
speech, known to God in its reality, is the strength of his placement!

"Thus
says the Lord:

'Refrain
your voice from weeping,

And your
eyes from tears;

For your
work shall be rewarded, says the Lord,

And they
shall come back from the land of the enemy.

'There is
hope in your future, says the Lord,

That your
children shall come back to their own border.

'I
have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself:

"You have
chastised me, and I was chastised,

Like an
untrained bull;

Restore
me, and I will return,

For You
are the Lord my God.

Surely,
after my turning, I repented;

And after
I was instructed, I struck myself on the thigh;

I was
ashamed, yes, even humiliated,

Because I
bore the reproach of my youth."

'Is
Ephraim My dear son?

Ishe a pleasant child?

For though I
spoke against him,

I earnestly
remember him still;

Therefore My
heart yearns for him;

I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord.' "

It immediately proceeds to show Ephraim the
ways of stability and godly strength, culminating in the revelation of the
Messiah to come! (Jeremiah 31:21-22), that phenomenon in which the Lord is to change all things,
something immediately confirmed in Jeremiah 31:31ff., with the very
interstices of the New Covenant to come!(see further, Tender Times for Timely Truth
Ch.
1).

Here is the
strength, and it is necessary to humble oneself that one may be moved upwards
in due time: it is the former, not the latter, which forms the pertinent
contrast to Ephraim in former times, and the debased state in which, in the
time of Hosea, he was to be found. The nation had NOT been exalted, but
humbled, because the day when he spoke, and trembled, has long past.

Now he speaks
amiss: indeed, in Hosea 8:3-14, we find these words concerning its debasement,
its glorying where glory was not to be found!

"Israel
has rejected the good;

The enemy
will pursue him.

"They set
up kings, but not by Me;

They made
princes, but I did not acknowledge them.

From their
silver and gold

They made
idols for themselves—

That they
might be cut off.

"Your calf
is rejected, O Samaria!

My anger
is aroused against them—

How long
until they attain to innocence?

For from
Israel is even this:

A workman
made it, and it is not God;

But the
calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces.

"They sow
the wind,

And reap
the whirlwind.

The stalk
has no bud;

It shall
never produce meal.

If it
should produce,

Aliens
would swallow it up.

"Israel is
swallowed up;

Now they
are among the Gentiles

Like a
vessel in which is no pleasure.

For they
have gone up to Assyria,

Like a
wild donkey alone by itself;

Ephraim
has hired lovers.

Yes,
though they have hired among the nations,

Now I will
gather them;

And they
shall sorrow a little,

Because of
the burden of the king of princes.

"Because
Ephraim has made many altars for sin,

They have
become for him altars for sinning.

"I have
written for him the great things of My law,

But they
were considered a strange thing.

For the
sacrifices of My offerings they sacrifice flesh and eat it,

But the
Lord does not accept them.

"Now He
will remember their iniquity and punish their sins.

They shall
return to Egypt.

For Israel
has forgotten his Maker,

And has built temples ... "

Thus when Ephraim spoke
tremblingly, this figure of Israel, he exalted himself in his land; but now!
Baal worship, most devoid of fear of the Lord, has brought him down, degraded
his very nationhood to the ground, providing ground for condemnation. In other
words, it was in the atmosphere of trembling before God, who in His goodness
presented wonders of supervision and kindness, that Israel was brought to a
high pitch, but in his bursting with pride, he decided to have some other god
for his enjoyment, addition, and so depravity spoiled contentment with
richness of blessing. The colon in the translation is intended to signify
this. The capital in "He" is merely to increase the sense of flow from
trembling to exaltation.

Hosea 13:2

The Stupendous Outrage

"Now they sin more
and more,
and have made for themselves moulded images, idols of their silver,
according to their skill: all of it the work of craftsmen.

"They say of them, 'Let the sacrificers of mankind kiss the calves!' "

The rendering of the first part of
this verse occasions no challenge. The theme of accelerating, rampant and
ramifying sin is not uncommon, and is the 'normal and natural' prelude to
disaster, to which alas, Israel in its ways found with abundance but no felicity.

Indeed, so like the current Gentile
world is the Israel of that ancient day, that we find they even receive this
denunciation: "Because Ephraim has made many altars to
sin, they have become for him altars for sinning."

Altars for sin ? In
this case, 'high places' for worshipping God in their own non-appointed way
would become one way of allowing intoxication with the naturalistic fallacies
and religions which surrounded them, each one according to his art, or even a
city according to its wish. This is the aggregative, the synthetic field for
religious reality from God, PLUS man's ways, cultures, morals, if such they may be called.

Thus in Jeremiah
2:27-30 we have these elemental charges from the Lord to His people. What have
they been doing ? it has been things like these:

"Saying to
a tree, ‘You are my father,’

And
to a stone, ‘You gave birth to me.’

For
they have turned their back to Me, and not their face.

But
in the time of their trouble

They
will say, ‘Arise and save us.’

"But where
are your gods that you have made for yourselves?

Let
them arise,

If
they can save you in the time of your trouble;

For
according to the number of your cities

Are
your gods, O Judah.

Thus the Lord asks:

"Why will
you plead with Me?

You
all have transgressed against Me."

His remonstrance tingles
on the air:

"In vain I
have chastened your children;

They
received no correction.

Your
sword has devoured your prophets

Like a destroying lion."

Cities have city-gods, like local
Baals, that territorial sink for sin which produces like giant weeds, the altars
for abominable things, perversions and deaths, as collective infamies breed.
When one protests, when a prophet speaks to correct them, from the Lord, it is
as when Jehoash slew Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, who had nurtured him. And why
did the king act in such heinour hauteur ? It was because
of his lust for change.

They use the sword, they 'devour' the prophets like a
destroying lion. It becomes like some autocratic land, like Russia, which for so
long has slain so many who dared to criticise, in so many sometimes original but
always insatiable ways.

This sort of movement we see in II
Chronicles 24:17-22:

"Now after the death of
Jehoiada the leaders of Judah came and bowed down to the king. And the king
listened to them.

"Therefore they left the
house of the Lord God of their fathers, and served wooden images and idols;
and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem because of their trespass.

"Yet He sent prophets to
them, to bring them back to the Lord; and they testified against them, but
they would not listen.

"Then the Spirit of God came
upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, who stood above the people,
and said to them,

'Thus says God:

"Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord,
so that you cannot prosper?
Because you have forsaken the Lord, He also has forsaken you."

"So they conspired against
him, and at the command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court
of the house of the Lord. Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness
which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but killed his son; and as he
died, he said, 'The Lord look on it, and repay!' "

It is in such a development, over
the centuries moving like a aeroplane laden with atomic bombs, set upon
yielding doors in the bomb-bay, in the midst of it, that Hosea speaks. What
new thing, then, have they devised ? what fresh synthesis, laden with the
weight of hell has come to afflict their people ?

'New' ? It is not necessarily a
genuine novelty, but may be merely a digression from truth, an impression from
the rampaging passions of murder, religiously dressed, with pagan concepts of
appeasing the gods by slaughter of children, as with Moloch, or in general of
mankind, which could also occur with Baal. Indeed, they even import it into
scorching substitutes in high places of synthesis, where with the very name of
God, they might indulge in such unprincipled works.

The Lord countered their folly
with such words as these (Jeremiah 19:5):

"They have built
also the high places of Baal,
to burn their sons with fire
for burnt offerings unto Baal,
which I did not commanded, nor speak it,
neither came it into My mind ... "

High places, synthetic religiosity! Murder plus sacrilege plus blasphemy plus
tragic distortion of the tenderness due to the child, what an array for
judgment; and if a practice, what a thrust for the overthrow of a people!

Now we revert to the translation of Hosea 13:2.
We come to the last segment,

"They say of them, 'Let the sacrificers of mankind kiss the calves!' "

Kissing the calves refers to the
use of a calf as a symbol for the Lord, perhaps after the style of Aaron's
colossal evil, when as a leader of Israel out of the literal slavery in Egypt,
by the mighty power of God, he yielded and made a golden calf, so that they
could say of it, that this was had led them out of Egypt.

Since such an animal could be
sacred in significance in Egypt, this was a synthesis of the things of the
Lord with Egyptian power and culture, which God had overthrown, withering
their false gods with a literally devastating scorn!

Therefore, when later such things
as religiously devised calves were used, there was a ridiculous recidivism, a
yearning for the days of slavery if followed to its end, and a mockery of the
power that had saved them! How many modern nations are now doing just the
same, and are the USA and even Australia coming into this field even now ?

In ancient Israel, what had been
exposed as fiction and vapidity, man-religion for the heart of man, in the
defeat of Pharaoh's harsh rule over the people of Israel, mere slaves, had
thus been brought into the realm of the God who provides, like an imported
boil. It was an affront to history, to their escape, that escapade, that
miracle chapter in history, but most of all to Him who had rescued them
in one of the most scintillating actions of all time, systematic, verbally
explicit, wrought in food and water to provide for millions for years,
involving not only escape but escapade, not merely deliverance but triumph.

To CONTINUE such practices was of
course an action of systematic rebellion, concocted impudence, deliberate
duress in the relationship of the people with God, like a divorcee insisting
on using the signature of his wife on dud cheques, when the relationship was a
mockery! Such was Samaria, with its golden calves. KISSING the calves became
an expression of tenderness amidst perversity, worship amidst idolatry,
spiritual promiscuity amid rebellion, adorned with sentiment, outrageous in
infelicity, a holy hypocrisy.

Thus the charge is that those who
deal thus with mankind, that they even SLAY them, in the field of religion,
outrageous, inhuman, atrocity-makers, covenant breakers, murderers in the
realm of the divine, 'SACRIFICERS OF MANKIND', then come and aggravate their
spiritual crimes. How do they, how can they make things worse after
religiously drafted murders ? It is in this way.

Theythen make such a pseudo-sanctified folly of it, that they
DARE, even dare to mix their faiths and beliefs and ways with the Lord, and at
that, with Himself under the idolatrous guise of a calf, and at that, a calf
which looks back to the hideous defilement of giving an Egyptian cult figure,
cattle, to the work of the Lord, and at that, doing this when the Lord had
just led them out of that culture, and at that, led them out of the slavery
which had soiled their spirits, crushed their hearts and riddled their race
with ruin.

Moreover, being so callous, they
KISS the calf, as if there is to be no end to the mismatches, to the mischiefs, to the
perversions and diversions which could be found, as if folly were an art form and
the architecture of religion were made an innovative affront to its object,
even to the Author of the human race, of 'mankind'.

What more of provocation is
POSSIBLE!

This then is the result of sinning
more and more, earlier in Hosea 13:2, and here is the climax to it

THEREFORE, the LORD indicates, they will become
like the morning cloud and early dew - it just passes with time; and like
chaff blown off, like chimney smoke (Hosea 13:3). There comes a time when
calamity can be kind, and an interruption of hideous practices by blight can
be the only redress to reality.

The Translation and the
Application

The above translation, as we find in
the Pulpit Commentary, is the kind made by Jerome, Theodoret, Cyril and many of
the older Hebrews. This is scarcely surprising. However Keil on this occasion,
in the Old Testament Commentary of Keil and Delitzsch, prefers to render it,
that the SACRIFICERS AMONG MANKIND kissed the calves.

The Hebrew actually says,
sacrificers of
men, a participle, those who slay, with an object, men. This is the object of
the verbal form and of the sacrifice: mankind!

The term is actually the
most generic MAN (transliterated adam). Firstly, however, why should we speak of
MAN, in the generic, when it is a sub-section of Israel which is involved ? What
is the point of dealing with the human race when the criminal actions are of a
highly specialised segment of it, engaging in select impudence against their
King in the Covenant ?

When however it is realised that we
are not referring to those who sacrifice among men, but those who sacrifice in
the very realm of MANKIND, religious man-killers, that the topic is the
horrendous and inhuman practice denounced in Psalm 106:37-38 concerning
religious killing of their children, then the incredible
presumption and folly of it, contrary to the very testimony of truth as in
Genesis 22, requires the use of the more categorical 'adam', for mankind! This
is the point. So far from being pointless, or blunting the point, it IS the
point. The term used applies the principle in view roundly.

Secondly, why make it complex, when
if the Lord had intended us to understand the preposition, 'among' to be
inserted before 'men', He could have
inspired its use when He spoke to Hosea! If we want to make ourselves clear and the means are at hand,
what sort of communication fails to use them and enables a blur which most
simply rendered is 'sacrificers of men', when it is meant that those who
sacrifice AMONG men are in
view ? This is implicitly to address negatively the expressive power of the
Lord, when all His words are pure, seven times refined; and when this
'interpretation' is merely
gratuitous.

Thirdly, this is a crescendo in
judgment, and to refer to A GENERAL GROUP, 'sacrificers' some of whom do well,
some very evilly, when the accusation is against a SPECIAL GROUP, those who do
it wantonly, is strangely lacking in application. Do you charge the good and the
bad, the sacrificers among men, and then deal with the kissing of the calves by
them, when only some of the group first noted, are astray in sacrifice at all ? What would be the point of that ?
Does the barrister refer to the women of the city, when only one has murdered!
or to the women of the world when an alley incident occurs in a broken home ?

Even if he did, would he refer to
the women of the world, the workers among women, when seeking to select a
special case ? The very term 'workers' carries rather a special sense, and is
not readily impressed for service as such, with some highly particular sin. SO too the term 'those
who sacrifice among men' has to be moved into evil alignment for the charge to
have pith and point, and it tends to do the exact opposite, like an harassment
in the argument, instead of a help.

It is a general term, and with the
normal Old Covenant background, one formally a good one. It is the act rather
than the object of sacrifice which is then in view, and that whether done well
or evilly, as humble obeisance or arrogant obfuscation and obtrusion.

If it be said that it is assumed
that we are dealing with the evil, so be it: but do we then choose a generic
term to lessen as far as may be, and to give an extenuating sense to what is
specific in its wickedness ? Why ? It is counter-productive as WELL as not
specifically indicated in the text, when most simply by the mere use of a
short preposition, it could have been made clear. Do we INCLUDE the word 'among', because it
is conceivable, when it is not there, and when what is actually there is eminently clear!

To do such appears actually to add to the
word of God. It is to assume that what is not there MUST be imported when it has
not been inserted, and to add to what is there with the utmost simplicity and
clarity: and this, for reasons which CANNOT be simply to render what is written. It is an
adventure into the superfluous, addition without warrant. We must not however
add to His words, lest He rebuke us, and then ? it is possible then to be found
a liar, says the proverb (Proverbs 30:6).

Thus the trend of such an addition
is to add a point, as well as to lose all point. The point is the utterly atrocious and outrageous addition
of sin to sin, impudent, rampaging, ruinous, with vast and soon stated result
from the Lord, to meet this extravaganza of evil. Without addition, this is found in the hideous
and harrowing slaughter of men in the very name of God and in the very domain of
religion, with the very hypocritical addition of kissing, and at that, kissing
an emblem of that very Egyptian culture from which, in devastating exhibition of its helpless
deceits, He had performed the wonders of the Exodus!

It is one thing in pagan worship to
enter the category of those who make animal sacrifices as a prelude to that of
Christ, group one; it is quite another to become a man-slayer, man-sacrificer,
or in this case particularly, to gain title to the post of child-murderer for
sacrifice, group two.The term 'those who sacrifice,' with the
addition of a preposition, 'among' includes both kinds, the atrocious and the
ardent and ordered: as it stands, it refers only to those who by 'kissing the
calf' reach a climax of ethical catastrophe, starting at z and ending at z
minus!

Confronting what after all is a
NATION in which group one is as frequent as the day, involving a thing ordered
and part of their very life in the ways of God, with such a term as this, in
order to ridicule and shame their other actions, would be like saying this:
You are a people who do not steal, and yet you have pagan worship. Slippage
from good things in life, many, into some one folly is so common as to be almost
a proverb. What would have final impact in the charge, in that! It is adding sin
to sin not slipping into sin which is the thrust of the passage, and indeed its
phrasing.

Thus, it is no reference to those who
sacrifice among men, with a calf-kiss as an additive, that we find here, as if this potentially
lawful body is suddenly seen with one evil, or a composite body were suddenly to
be seen in differential in what follows. We do not need to feed into the text
such additives of ambiguity or such features of imagination. Indeed, we have
then no reason for the
expansion to the 'human race' (in the term selected in the text) of the
already too general concept of what is either good or bad, depending on the
nature and purpose of the sacrifice.

Such a muddle would only limit the
application of the finale, almost as if a climax in peroration were to become a
single indictment.

Who then are in view, and who are those who engage in such a multitude of
emotional, spiritual and perverse sins as kissing the calf - the second
feature of the charge in this sentence ? Why is it not those so tender that
they offer human sacrifice! No sooner do you sacrifice children in ONE system,
than versatile, they transfer to another and kiss claves. Multiply synthetic,
they move in diverse realms, insatiable for evil. Yes, with all their
adorational religiosity, another of their exploits is this: that they slay
men, and do it as part of their religion! Put in the sequence of the text:
They even associate with the idolatrous worship of
the Lord who perform such ethical enormities, unnatural vices, such heinous
crimes.

Following then the text with fidelity
and not assuming what is not there in an additive exercise - one not in
principle to be
considered unless there is contextual constraint for it, in this case lacking ,
with rather the
opposite is in view: what do we find ? In this adding sin to sin depiction which
the Lord has just announced in judgment, in Hosea 13:1-2, what follows in the
final sentence ?

First, we find that there IS a class
of sacrificers, we are not moving inchoately in the realm of the entirety, good
and bad of such persons, but into the class in view. It is those who are
sacrificers of the human, almost a religious oxymoron, an outrage in the very
phrasing. This is something about which the Lord was and is on record as
detesting, as noted above from Jeremiah. Religious sacrifice in the HUMAN RACE!
It did not even come into His mind
(Jeremiah 19:5-6). There is the significance of the term for man deployed: it is
an outrage against the race.

Secondly, these who so act,
dare to have
other religious exercises at all, as if murder were inadequate for their follies.
They sin more and more, like incessant waves in motion.

The waves moreover mount to the
heavens.

Thirdly, when they do, in noxious
contrast with the pure love of God, who sends and gives, and does not require
such things from man the rebel (as so eloquently shown with Abraham who, willing
to sacrifice Isaac, even if it meant the lad's arising from the dead, was shown
not only not to do so, but the alternative of God, that ram caught in the
thicket, a foreshadowing of Christ, caught amongst criminals), engage in
religious activities, what is their way then ? What do they add to calamitous
mischaracterisation of the love of God in such sacrifices ? They provide a
doubly hideous caricature, contortion and distortion.

What is that ? They KISS the calves, they embrace
with emotion and fealty the idolatrous, they move to a depraved naturalism, and
an alien depiction, they merge with Egyptian follies and cast behind their backs
the salvation of God, while yet mouthing it. Sin having human blood on its
hands, having insulted God with what Psalm 49 declares systematically useless
and hopeless in its presentation of the truth of redemption, must follow up
neological murder by psychological excesses, adoration of heart! Here is the
very shambles of ruin, irrevocable sin in a setting ready for insatiable lust.
If it be not physical, then it is at least spiritual.

It is like Romanism, in this*1, that
the idolatrous bread is merged with the purity of God, that the cultural use of
sacred emblems is merged with what must have no image made of it, that the
murder of Christ is to be sanctified by priests, who allege that they are
performing what happened at Calvary, and that this is the most sacred of rites,
its bread symbol becoming worthy of the uttermost in the realms of devotion, of
worship.

It is no less like ecumenicity and
liberalism, merging with the cultural objects of the land, while daring still to
mention the name of the Lord, their spiritual fidgets and imperial
prototypes emerging without ostensible sanctity, as if the mere massed multitude of men made the mercies
of God in their own image, and the concurrence of phrases among rebels, made the word of God!

Is
not Isaiah 8:20 as relevant as ever ? There is the word of God and that of man,
and if you do not speak in accord with what He says, then there is no light in
you.

You can neither makes gods nor the word of
God: it is God Himself who, the I AM, refuses to have such mergers, as you see
not only in the Exodus in the error of Aaron, but in Galatians 1, and II
Corinthians 11, where the christs being formed were forged in the fires of human
imagination, so that those making them are called false apostles. We have them
today. There are many false christs, just as Christ foretold in Matthew 24:24,
and many false apostles you purvey them.

Yes, this sort of combination
worship could be even associated with sodomy as you see in II Kings 23:7, when
the godly Josiah removed their booths from the very TEMPLE precincts. This reminds of
those, whether Anglican or Uniting, who are enabling, allowing, forwarding or
endorsing the use of the offices of the church by those, pastors or other, who
are practising homosexuals, or engaged in biblically defined perversity. The
fact that these, among many others, cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, not
because sinners, but because they remain in the category of rebellion, rather
than that of
repentance with humility before the word, ways and witness of God: this is
ignored.

But Paul does not ignore it in I
Corinthians 5:11-12, 6:9-11, I Timothy 1:10.

Returning to Hosea's day, then, who
are those who engage in such a multitude of evils ? Why is it not those so
tender, so synthetic, so godless in contrivance and heedless in arrogance that
they kiss an idol of vast historic debasement, one of the signals of ruin for
Israel (Exodus 32:1-30), which caused vast deaths and suffering when it happened, and was to be
followed by their catastrophic faith-failure, when they actually refused to
enter the promised land! (cf. Hebrews 4:1-2, I Corinthians 10).

What we actually find then in Hosea
13:2 becomes like a chant, or possibly
even an inducement: Sacrificers of men, they kiss the calves!

Thus,

firstly because of the actual word
of God,
not including what is suggested
and not requiring its invention or insertion of the preposition;

secondly because God could have
inserted it
if the simple meaning were not intended, and did not;

thirdly because of the comparatively
bathetic result if this fact is ignored;

fourthly because of the intensive
procedure to climax immediately
before the announcement of divine judgment which the text as given directly
provides;

fifthly because the preceding
context is stressing
the adding of sin to sin in a cyclotronic sort of style which this exhibits in
detail;

sixthly because this rendering is
the most simple, direct and has ancient testimony
from eminent scholars among the Greeks and ancient ones of the Hebrews;

seventhly because of the use of the
generic term for man, not a specific one,
when the specific is in view; but above all,

eighthly, because the
translation given is not only the literal rendering
but one totally immersed in all that precedes and set
in every aspect with refined delicacy and robust force, ending in utter judgment:

for all these reasons, this is the
translation given.

And what a testimony it has to
multiplying religions and syntheses and sacrificial additives, not satisfied
with Calvary, whether in physical or mental terms, and what a warning it brings!

Moreover, in Hosea, the book of
contrasts, not least there is some verses later shown the way GOD will
handle it: what is the right way (13:14). It is not in the sacrifice of mankind,
that category, sinners for sin, so that alters for sin become altars for sinning
as Hosea puts it. Rather as always, the Lord insists that it is HE HIMSELF, none
other, in His own purity, power and plan, without aid from the afflicted,
support from the condemned, but out of sheer mercy and divine love, who will
pardon sin. This He will do to the uttermost, removing the ultimate results,
so that both death and destruction are made away, as old accounts, by godly
payment. It is HIS OWN payment that will do it (as in Romans 3:23ff., Ephesians
2:1-10 in the New Testament).

It is HIMSELF indeed who will pay, and NOTHING will turn Him from this
decision, inflexible in kind, immiscible in its purity, decisive in its
provision. "Pity is hidden from My eyes." That
is, as in Hebrews 5:7, the extremity of cost, He will bear, though it astound
the world, cover the depths and anoint the skies with light. This is the open
door of Christ, given whether to closed or peering minds; and this is the
call, invariant in essence and the beauty of divine power and love, the
fundamentals of His own free mercy, from that day to this, yes and from the
very beginning, from the protevangelion.

Such is the message in this very
same chapter of Hosea, so that you get the contrast -Hosea is a book of
contrasts, of virgin and prostitute, of godly marriage and promiscuity, of mercy
and ingratitude, of enormous love and sinful enormity. What then is THIS
contrast ? It is that -

between the depth of iniquity in
those who slay mankind
(thus including children as part of the race, as for Psalm 106,
which speaks of offering them as sacrifices to idols, as of a worm infection),

and the height of divinity's desire,
in the sacrifice of HIMSELF.

I WILL BE... He says, death's
plagues and the grave's destruction! (Hosea 13:14). This is precisely what
Christ says, as seen in Matthew 20:28, and Paul indites in Galatians 3, what is
declared in Romans 3, 5, 8 as in I Corinthians 15.